Focus on International Justice – September
Moroccan court to examine Israeli war crimes case
The Court of Appeal in Rabat, Morrocco, has agreed to examine a case filed by a group of Moroccan lawyers against an Israeli soldier for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza. The man had shared photos on social media of himself in military uniform standing amongst damaged buildings, before sharing other photos on holiday in Morrocco.
The lawyers behind the complaint have asked the court to try the man under Morrocco’s terrorism legislation, which allows prosecutors to pursue criminal cases against foreign nationals found on Moroccan territory that are suspected of committed terrorism-related offenses. If the court decides to try the case, it will mark the first ever war crimes case against an Israeli soldier in North Africa.
[Afghanistan] Taliban to answer to International Court of Justice – Four countries have undertaken the first steps in filing a case before the ICJ against the Taliban for gender discrimination. While the Taliban’s policies on women have been described as ‘gender apartheid’ and gender persecution, which would constitute international crimes, the complaint would be brought as an erga omnes case under international human rights law.
[International Criminal Court] Forced displacement in Belarus and Nagorno-Karabakh – On Monday 30e September, Lithuania filed a referral to the ICC against Belarusian President Lukashenko and his government. The referral alleges that a crackdown on opposition that has led hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country, mostly into Lithuania, constitutes, among other things, forced displacement as a crime against humanity. Also this month, a case of crimes against humanity was filed by two human rights advocates who were among the 100,000 people forced to leave Nagorno-Karabakh during Azerbaijan’s military offensive that began at the end of 2022.
[Australia] Soldiers stripped of medals – Several unit commanders suspected of involvement in war crimes committed in Afghanistan have been stripped of their military medals by the Australian Defence Minister. The recent policy of stripping medals is limited to high-ranking officials for their purported knowledge of abuses committed by soldiers under their command, while criminal investigations are being conducted into troops accused of directly committing war crimes.
[Colombia] Emblematic murder case before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace – The first adversarial case before Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace started this month. Hernán Mejía Gutiérrez, a former high-ranking colonel, faces 72 charges of ‘extrajudicial execution’ for his orchestration of the ‘false positives’ practice, whereby military soldiers falsely identified the killings of civilians by the military as ‘combat kills’ of guerrilla fighters.
[Central African Republic] Special Criminal Court arrests former Seleka leader – Abakar Zakaria Hamid has been arrested and charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes for his alleged involvement in an attack on a church in Bangui in 2014. The Seleka coalition launched multiple attacks targeting internally displaced people in its conflict against anti-balaka militias beginning in 2012. The International Criminal Court held hearings on a 3,5-million-euro compensation claim filed by Maxime Mokom, a former anti-balaka militia leader whose case was dropped by the Court’s Prosecutor last year.
[Syria] Universal jurisdiction cases on abuses of Yazidis – A Swedish woman has been charged with genocide and other international crimes for her alleged involvement in torturing and enslaving 9 Yazidi women and children in Syria between 2014 and 2016. Prosecutorial authorities in France have opened the country’s first ever genocide case against a French citizen, a woman accused of the enslavement and torture of a Yazidi girl in Syria in 2015.
[Cameroon] Norway arrests man suspected of inciting Anglophone violence – Norwegian police have arrested a Commander-in-Chief of the Ambazonian Defense Forces, an armed group that has been fighting for independence from Cameroon since the Anglophone crisis in 2016. The man denies inciting violence during the conflict that has so far seen over 6,000 people killed.
[Argentina] Officer accused of murder requests military trial in Italy – Former Lieutenant colonel Carlos Luis Malatto, who fled to Sicily in 2011, has requested to be tried before a military court in Italy. After he was charged in absentia in Argentina with crimes against humanity for the murder of 8 people between 1976 and 1978, Italy refused Argentina’s extradition request and opened its own investigations into him.
[Chile] Human Rights Court rules against sentence mitigation – The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that the application of Chile’s ‘gradual prescription’ mechanism, used to reduce prison sentences handed down in 14 cases of execution, forced disappearance, and crimes against humanity committed during the Pinochet dictatorship, must be reversed. The Court ordered Chile to review the sentence reductions and adapt the ‘gradual prescription’ legislation to ensure that it cannot be applied to cases of crimes against humanity or serious human rights violations.
[Gaza] Case dropped against Franco-Israeli soldier – Prosecutors in France have dropped a case of complicity in torture and barbarism against a man who reportedly filmed and posted videos online of Israeli soldiers mistreating Palestinian detainees in Gaza. Judicial sources state that the evidence presented was not sufficient to establish complicity.
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